Cremorne and the later London gardens

by Warwick William Wroth

In 1844 there was a change of proprietors. Edward Cross retired, [88b] and was succeeded by William Tyler, who had been the secretary to the gardens. Next year a gigantic and very ugly orchestra was erected for the accommodation of a band of 300 under Jullien, [89] who had made a name by his promenade concerts at Covent Garden and Drury Lane. Post-horn gallops and polkas now enlivened the multitude, and in this ‘Concert monstre’ the brass too often got the better of the strings. Some vocalists (Mlle. Lovarny and Miss Huddart) were also introduced (1848). These concerts and the panoramas bring us to 1855, which was practically the last year of the old Zoo. For Tyler then disposed of his property, and sold off the wild beasts. The popular taste was no doubt changing, though Tyler had done his best, and lit up the glass conservatory so that (as his advertisements stated) the ‘matchless collection of carnivora could be viewed by gaslight.’

The gardens were now taken in hand by the Surrey Music-Hall Company, who had a working capital of over £30,000, and rented the gardens for £346. The chairman of this company was Sir W. de Bathe, but Jullien had a considerable stake in the enterprise. At a cost of £18,200 a music-hall (in the classical sense of the word) was erected near the lake, on the site of the circular conservatory. This building, by Horace Jones, was on a great scale, and would hold an audience of 12,000 and an orchestra of 1,000. Its general appearance was not ineffective, but a critic described its style as degenerate Italian relieved in the French taste. It was opened on July, 15, 1856, with a performance of ‘The Messiah,’ with Jullien, Clara Novello, Sims Reeves, Miss Dolby, and Piatti.

In the autumn the new hall had a strange tenant in Mr. C. H. Spurgeon, who, finding Exeter Hall and his own chapel too small, hired the building for four Sundays for a payment of £15 each Sunday. On the evening of October 19 there was an enormous congregation. While Spurgeon was engaged in prayer an extraordinary panic occurred. Some mischief-maker raised a shout of ‘Fire!’ or, according to another account, there was an agonized cry of ‘The roof! The roof!’ A mad rush was made for the doors, some of which seem to have been locked to prevent people strolling in and out of the gardens. Spurgeon kept calm, and, when the terror subsided, some of the congregation found their way back to the hall, but seven persons had been killed and about fifty injured in the crush.

The new company was soon in difficulties, and in August of 1857 the directors were behindhand with their rates. At a meeting of the shareholders Jullien complained bitterly that, though a profit of £1,000 had been made, he was given no money to pay his band. He had lost—as he put it—£2,000 by his unpaid salary, and £2,000 by his worthless shares. In 1859 there was a more modest orchestra of sixty, and the Surrey Gardens Choir performed madrigals; but in the background there were proceedings in Chancery, and in April the gardens—now described as of ten acres—were advertised for sale. In June, 1861, the music-hall was burnt out, and though in the following year a picture of the Bay of Naples was offered to the public, the life of the gardens was wellnigh extinct. It happened that at this time (1862) the authorities of St. Thomas’s Hospital had to leave their old home in Southwark, and needed a temporary resting-place. They had the music-hall rebuilt, and used it for the reception of patients until 1871. Then the new hospital was opened on the Albert Embankment.

The gardens nearly outlasted the seventies. In May 1872, an enterprising lessee, Frederick Strange, who had been manager and proprietor of the Alhambra, opened the gardens for concerts, operettas, and ballets. [90] The grounds had become a wilderness, and had to be considerably ‘improved.’ The theatre was the old music-hall remodelled. At the opening concert Mme. Marimon and other members of Mapleson’s opera company appeared, and Sims Reeves and Mme. Patey sang at one of the ballad concerts. But in 1873 the entertainments were fashioned on those of Cremorne. There were Derby and Oaks ‘Festivals’ in May, and that unfortunate nobleman, ‘Sir Roger Tichborne,’ was announced to appear in the theatre. In September there was a gala with ‘50,000’ lamps for the benefit of Robert Duffell, who had for half a century illumined Vauxhall, Cremorne, and smaller public gardens.

In 1875 the lessees were Messrs. Poole and Stacey, who produced comic opera and ballet. Captain Boyton this year exhibited the life-saving apparatus with which he had crossed the Channel. In 1877 a new manager or lessee, John Reeves, offered for a sixpenny admission an open-air dancing-platform, a variety entertainment, and the sight of a Canadian ox of 400 stone. The last regular entertainment took place in the theatre on August 14, 1877.

In March, 1878, the theatre was hired for a single performance, a boxing match between Rooke and Harrington. A rough company of 800 people were got together, and the prize, a splendid silver vase valued at £100, was ostentatiously displayed to the audience. An old ‘Surrey’ waiter who was present is said to have recognized in this noble trophy a capacious leaden vessel which had stood on one of the refreshment counters in the water-drinking days of the Zoological Gardens. [91]

[This account is mainly based on a large collection of bills, views, and newspaper matter formed by the writer. Some interesting details in Bishop H. H. Montgomery’s Kennington, 1889, chap. xi.; Walford, Old and New London; Blanchard in Era Almanack, 1871, p. 4; Blanchard’s Life.

Views: Plan of the gardens prefixed to the Companion to the Royal Surrey Gardens, third edition, 1835. Lithograph published by Havell in 1832 (W.). Lithograph by Alvey, 1836. Views in the Mirror, 1832. Illustrated London News, July 19, 1856 (view of gardens in 1856). The annual panoramas were regularly pictured in the Mirror and the Illustrated London News.]